


Stand Your Ground

by Smokeycut



Category: New Mutants, X-Men
Genre: ANGSTY ANGST ANGST, and its hella sad, everyone dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 09:09:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13760865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smokeycut/pseuds/Smokeycut
Summary: Death comes for the New Mutants at different times, in different ways, but it still comes. They can't escape it, but they can accept it.





	Stand Your Ground

Roberto dies looking up at a sentinel’s cold, unfeeling gaze. He screams at it to give him it’s best shot, to get it over with. The battle around them had already been finished. The Hellfire Club nothing more than rubble. Dead aristocrats and shredded robots littering the floor, with only from each side standing on shaky legs. He spends the last of his power crippling the behemoth so that it can never move again, and it spends the last of it’s to end his life. A burst of golden light from it’s palm is the response to Roberto’s challenge. They both give their best shots. They both lose. But ‘Berto dies laughing.

Dani dies staring down her killer. She doesn’t back down, she never could. She nocks an arrow as the purifier pulls the trigger on his gun. The arrow hits it’s target dead-on, but she can only stand for a moment longer than him. When she falls, when she hits the gravel road, she sees a vision of death in a puddle of rainwater beside her. A woman with long hair tied in twin braids, wearing a fringe jacket that belonged to her father. Death is herself, with an offered hand and a promise that the hall of the slain awaits her with a feast.

Doug and Warlock die as one. They couldn’t really die any other way. Battling aliens on a hostile world, the electric tingle of their techno-organic skin the final sensation they feel. They buy time for their allies to escape, to flee to allied territory. They stay behind, knowing without a doubt that this battle is their last. Not one scenario ends with both surviving, and neither one can accept leaving the other behind. They take as many of their opponents with them as they can, but the numbers don’t lie. Death is instant when their head is cleaved from their shoulders. Their last thoughts are of each other, an assurance that it’ll be okay.

Amara dies with Selene’s hand at her throat. They’re bound by blood and fate, and so this death will be shared by the Black Queen. Amara makes certain of that. The cavern walls close in on them, sealing them inside a tomb with no light save for that of the lava flows. It sears Selene further and further as it approaches, and Amara knows that even when her last breath is taken, there will be no escape for her opponent. She hears a chorus of the dead as her vision fades, and when the blackness overwhelms her, she goes happily. She dies triumphant. She dies a warrior’s death. It is as good a death as any.

Illyana dies a monster, letting loose a sinister laugh and embracing her demonic horde. The Sorcerer Supreme strikes her down, believing that he had ended her foul plans and saved the day. But heroes don’t win in Limbo. Limbo corrupts, just as it corrupted the little girl who was trapped there for several years. In death, Illyana’s true plan becomes apparent. The gates to her realm swing shut, and she spits blood and venom at her foe with her dying gasps. The realization sets in that he will never leave, not until death takes him as well. Her mausoleum is his prison, a cell of fire and brimstone. She is victorious in death. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

Rahne dies messily, hiding in a cove. A slight is taken too seriously, and she takes the fight too far. Far enough that it ends with her slumped over a slick rock, bleeding out from wounds all over. Her blood mixes with the seawater and she wonders if this is really how it ends. Not with joy, not with peace, not even with a real reason behind it. Her death has no greater purpose, and it saves no lives. It’s the death she always feared. She lets loose one last howl and claws at her own flesh, pleading with her God to take her. Her body isn’t found for some time. She picked her hiding place well.

Sam dies knowing he did good. A normal day turned to chaos when another explosion tore the school to bits, and Sam is the last one out. He crashes onto the grass with two students under his arms, and he sees that not one life had been lost in the blast. Then he sees the wood sticking out of his gut, and the blood pooling out of him. He started flying just a moment too late to save himself, but he doesn’t mind. Not truly. He knows he’ll see Jay soon. He’ll see Pa soon. He’ll see the others who had fallen before. It’s not as scary as he thought it’d be.

Xi'an dies when she’s old and gray and wrinkly faced. She never thought she’d be the last, but she’s glad she made it this far. One of them had to live long enough to see the effects of their struggle. She sees mutants living freely, in a world where death doesn’t come from a laser beam or the other end of a bigot’s knife. Death comes to her with a diagnosis, with treatments that are too little and too late. Death comes to her with a sympathetic touch and a comfortable bed, with a wife and family and friends by her side. Death is just the end to this story, and the start of a new one.


End file.
